BioWare Explains Why There's No Homosexuality in Mass Effect 2

[elvor0]

Sheperd has more of a character to him, wheras the guy in Dragon Age has no character, so therefor you are completely making the character in DOA, wheras if Bioware want Shepard to be a certain character, and that character isnt Bi/Gay, I don't see what the problem is.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

As I see it, the flaw in "We have a certain character in mind for Shepard" is obvious. Wait, you know that Shepard is straight...and won't bend on that subject. But we get to decide their gender and method for getting the job done? If anything, shouldn't you be assigning a gender and letting us choose a sexuality, rather than the other way around?

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Perhaps the idea that the word isn't actually offensive might be the best way to look at it? Gay used to mean "happy and carefree" a few decades back.

Aye, but claiming that they still mean those things when clearly used out of context is a little naive. I mean, was he calling someone a cigarette? I just don't see how using words you know are going to upset people is acceptable.

As you say, claiming it still only means that would be naive, but language evolves. While the word is only used in a negative context, it will be only seen as a negative word. Perhaps people could attempt to use it for positive things again? And that often starts with the people who it's most applied to. Look at Nerd or Geek.

 

[Shaoken]

Bioware, let me see if I get this straight, the player has the choice in the first game to either commit/not-commit genocide TWICE, and chose whether he wanted to allow the ruling galactic council die, and all that is kosher but if he considers having rough hairy bum sex with other guys... well shit we have a story arc in mind.

Because Kaiden/Keidan (I hate him so much, I don't remember his correct name) isn't gay. Why would a straight guy want to have sex with a homosexual?

Because everybody's gay for Sheppard! *twenty internets for whoever gets the reference*

 

[SNIPERFOX ft. Harry P.Ness]

damn strainght. a gay shepard would be creepy

 

[twistedshadows]

I find it odd that it did fit their vision for the first Mass Effect but not the second. It just doesn't add up. I would believe that it's because they were afraid it would hurt sales more than anything, but it didn't seem to dissuade most people from ME1 or Dragon Age so it still doesn't quite make sense to me.

 

[addeB]

But what about FemShep and Kelly Chambers? They can get into a homosexual relationship.

Yeah i though so to, i never played as a female character so wasn't sure.
You can be lesbian in both ME 1 and ME 2 so we want a better explanation!

 

[LiquidGrape]

damn strainght. a gay shepard would be creepy

Right. Do grow up.

 

[Legion]

They seem like poor excuses to me, not that it particularly bothered me personally.

I'd have thought a better line of argument would be: We'd have to either make new characters that were homosexuals or change all the existing love interests to being bisexual, both of which would either be a token thing or deviating away from how we wanted the current team to be."

Bioware should hire me as an excuse maker.

 

[Actsub]

Seems a little "Um, er... Character... Uh... Story?" to me. Poor dodge, Bioware, could have at least worked a little harder on your response.

 

[addeB]

they are the first big developer with a mainsteam game with a real noticable homosexual relationship (at least that ive seen) and they are under fire for not doing it on all thier games!? (i really want to say "how gay is that!?" ) anyway, its kind of dumb.

I'm pretty sure Will Wright had homosexuality in the sims before bioware?

 

[Woodsey]

"There seems to some subtext there that no one is saying, namely that the inclusion of actual homosexual relationships might hurt sales,"

But:

a) They had no problems with that with Dragon Age

b) Really? Couldn't you then say that about there being a black character (let's face it, racism and homophobia generally seem to go in hand)?

Dragon Age and Mass Effect are too very different games though. The Dragon Age protagonist is easily moulded and lacks a lot of depth to continue a story based on them, while Commander Shepard is a character that works around a manly or butch sense and as Bioware are the creators, they want to keep their depiction of Shepard intact.

Does it really matter anyway? Not every game needs a romantic sub-plot and even if it does contain one, it does not have to support every sexual preference. What if I had a fetish for dragons rooting cars? I might protest against ME3 until my Shepard can be a hermaphrodite dragon which is able to develop a relationship with homosexual cars.

I get that Shepard's much more of a character than the guy/gal you make from Dragon Age, but what difference would it really make to the overall "image" of the character if he was gay?

Also: "Not every game needs a romantic sub-plot and even if it does contain one, it does not have to support every sexual preference."

You make being gay sound exceptionally outlandish - they'd hardly be putting themselves out (mind the pun) to just include a gay romance option. No, not every game needs one; but if you're going to have one then cater to people a little bit better at least.

 

[tzimize]

What many of you seem to forget is that while the Shepard you create might be gay its biowares choice if any of your crew/party members are. Want to gay it up with Garrus? Fine, but maybe Garrus is not into guys...

While I have nothing against any kind of sexuality and FULLY support relationships of all kinds in rpgs (what I love most about rpgs beside the story is the relationships that develop, romantic or not) sometimes it just doesnt fit the NPC. Hell, my femshepard was SOOOOOOOOOOO ready to sex it up with Tali, but unfortunately Tali doesnt swing that way, so I had to settle for the frog and nail Tali on my second playthrough. Man...I never thought I'd say "nail" in that context.

While I find the reasoning that they wont have gay relationships on the basis of it not being good for sales extremely frustrating, I fully support them not having it on the basis of it not fitting the Npcs.

 

[elvor0]

Seems a little "Um, er... Character... Uh... Story?" to me. Poor dodge, Bioware, could have at least worked a little harder on your response.

I don't see how they don't want that to be part of shepard's personality to be a poor excuse at all, why does he HAVE to be able to be gay if they don't feel that would fit the story? It's needlessly shoehorning it onto him for no reason other than for the sake of it.

 

[SirJizzAlot]

Bah who cares,the only people that wants homosexuality are homosexuals.Unlike Lesbians since they are hot and homosexuals are definitely not.

 

[Dodgy]

I remember there being Mass Effect 1 - porn at the time. Anyone found any ME2 yet?

 

[Rogue 9]

I distinctly remember Bioware claiming that they never actually had a homosexual relationship in the original Mass Effect simply because the Asari are mono-gendered *cough* bullshit *cough*. Funny enough though, apparently there are files in the original Mass Effect that would have let you have a Ashley/femshep and Alenko/maleshep relationship. I haven't done any digging towards the latter simply because I DESPISE Alenko but I did stumble across this youtube video for the Ashley/femshep relationship.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Mwiqq-Y5r4&playnext_from=TL&videos=I_b5YFBKwHM

The author has also put in some links to download save game files for the original mass effect and apparently see the femshep/Ashley romance from beginning to end. I have yet to verify this myself simply because it is a step back from the gameplay in mass effect 2 (why eat a glazed donut when you can eat a glazed donut with sprinkles) though I suppose I could burn through it quickly without most of the side missions and such. Regardless, the fact that there is so much evidence of possible homosexual relationships in the original Mass Effect tells me that Bioware is taking the easy road out of this situation. Guess they lost their courage after the media had a damn aneurysm after seeing a second of bare blue ass.

I hadn't heard about this and now that I have I'm pretty miffed. My first playthrough was as a FemShep, and she's the one I've so far carried forward to ME2. I don't know if it's just me, but I always thought there was some subtext in the intonation/inflection/facial expressions of Ashley and FemShep's "That'll be all, chief" "Ma'am" exchange, which lead me to hope that they could get into a relationship. Once I realised it wasn't possible I set my sights on Liara instead, since I'd decided to pursue a lesbian option if possible for my character (since I didn't particularly like Kaiden or Garrus, and well, I didn't really want my character getting intimate with a Krogan, even if that was possible), but Ash would've been my first choice. Knowing it was put into the game and then dropped saddens me rather a lot, although I'm sure Bioware had their reasons for what they did.

 

[falcon1985]

Why is this an issue?

 

[AVATAR_RAGE]

Does it realy matter if it's in there or not? It would still be a great game. I think people are just looking into this too much.